Why wouldn't you?
I had been asked to escort this biggest of cheeses and his mates around the building before bringing them to the second floor where a dingy boardroom had been transformed into a grand dining hall where the party would have lunch.
I was not the best choice of tour guide. At the time, I was working nights on NewstalkZB. Security was tight in the wake of Paul Holmes' infamous comments about Kofi Annan.
You needed a swipe card to get to the different floors and if you had no business being there, you weren't granted access.
Consequently, the first and second floors were a mystery to me.
I had no idea who or what was there and a hurried explanation from my manager when I pointed this out, and a vague map drawn on the back of an envelope, didn't enlighten me much further.
But that was neither here nor there. O'Reilly and the luminaries that made up the international advisory board of his Independent News & Media company had arrived and it was action stations.
Introductions were hastily made and a flurry of handshakes exchanged. I was dumbstruck when Sir Sean Connery, perhaps the most glittering of the aforementioned luminaries, looked at me closely and raised his thick black eyebrows.
"Haven't I seen you on television?" he asked.
"I think I'm supposed to say that," I squeaked.
"Ah," he said. "It was before the test on Saturday. You were in that debate."
I shrank still further.
In exchange for tickets to the test in Wellington, I had agreed, against my better judgment, to participate in an "entertaining" debate between a Lions team and an All Blacks team.
It was ghastly. The predominantly Lions audience were not remotely entertained. I couldn't even go home and forget about it, because it then screened on TV.
Still, being there for the test in Wellington was worth the humiliation - until Sir Sean reminded me of it.
"Oh, I can be much better than that!" I exclaimed.
"I'm sure you're very, very good indeed," he said, with a slow smile, lowering his gravelly voice still further and gazing at me with his piercing eyes.
Despite the fact he was more than 30 years my senior, I felt myself melting.
I could completely understand why women had found him irresistible back in the day.
I led the group on a mad circumnavigation of the building. It was like a drunken conga line at a party as we ended up in dead end corridors and had to about-face in single file and crash into the people following behind us.
Eventually, I could take them all upstairs for lunch.
Despite the very best efforts of the decorating committee, the dingy boardroom looked like the hall at a rundown school that the seniors had tarted up for the school ball.
Still, the company was splendid.
I was seated next to Sir Sean and opposite the very snazzy Baroness Jay - the daughter of former Brit PM James Callaghan, who infamously had an affair with Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. She's a fascinating woman.
I also had the pleasure of chatting to a couple of O'Reilly's team mates from the '59 tour. They were utterly charming.
They had gone straight back to their farms in Ireland after their rugby playing days were over and lived very quiet lives since. They were delighted to be asked to join the tour of New Zealand and revelled in every new experience travelling with O'Reilly afforded.
It was an experience to remember and one of my all-time favourite lunches. Talk about better work stories. Cut to 12 years later, and O'Reilly has little left, but his knighthood and, I hope, his friends.
However, there's a whole new generation of Lions players and supporters in the country over the next month and they are very welcome.
I have no doubt there'll be memories made and stories to be told about the great Lions tour of 2017 - I'll still be dining out on my Lions story for years to come.
• Kerre McIvor is on NewstalkZB, Monday-Friday, noon-4pm.
